When Bruins needed it most, their big guns stepped up

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After back-to-back blowout losses on Thursday and Friday, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy called out the team’s “middle group” and named names -- Anders Bjork, Jake DeBrusk, John Moore, Connor Clifton, Chris Wagner, Sean Kuraly.

Three of those players -- Bjork, Moore and Wagner -- had that message hit even harder when Cassidy made them healthy scratches on Sunday. The other three -- DeBrusk, Clifton and Kuraly -- played better. The three players who came in -- Greg McKegg, Karson Kuhlman and Steven Kampfer -- more or less did what was asked of them, with McKegg and Kuhlman, in particular, teaming up with Kuraly on a new-look fourth line that had some good forechecking, offensive-zone shifts.

But sometimes when things are going as poorly as they were the last two games, it’s not really the depth players you need to turn things around. Sometimes what you really need to snap out of it is for your best players to go out, dominate and set the tone in every facet of the game.

That’s exactly what the Bruins’ big guns did in Sunday’s much-needed 4-1 bounce-back win over the Rangers.

It started right off the opening faceoff, with the first line getting in on the forecheck and going to work. Patrice Bergeron set the tone with a big, clean hit on Ryan Lindgren, who had drawn the ire of the Bruins on Friday with a couple hard hits on David Pastrnak. Later in the shift, Brad Marchand tagged Lindgren as well.

“They’re the leaders of this team, so they need to set the standard in a lot of different ways,” Cassidy said of his top line. “Some of it is performance on the ice. Some of it is conducting yourself off the ice. Some of it’s in the gym. Some of it’s how they practice. And some of it is setting the tone of the game, in a physical nature, that we’re gonna forecheck with a purpose, play behind their D, establish some territory, etc.

“That’s what we wanted to do the first shift and carry that over. So when your leaders bring that message or carry through the staff’s messaging, then it’s a trickle-down effect obviously, and that’s what happened.”

It wasn’t just the opening shift that the Bruins’ top trio asserted their will, though, and it wasn’t just physically. They dominated all game long, spending a ton of time in the Rangers’ zone and consistently generating chances. With Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak on the ice, the Bruins out-attempted the Rangers 17-2 and out-shot them 8-0.

Pastrnak picked up the primary assist on Charlie Coyle’s opening goal, and all three were on the ice for the Bruins’ third goal -- scored by Charlie McAvoy, started by a Bergeron offensive-zone faceoff win, and assisted by Pastrnak and Marchand with Bergeron setting a good screen in front.

Speaking of McAvoy, after a couple unusually off games (including a couple bad pinches that led to a pair of Islanders goals on Thursday), he was back to the Norris Trophy-caliber form he’s been in most of the season.

He was a force at both ends of the ice and seemed to click better with Jakub Zboril as a partner than he had with Urho Vaakanainen. He scored the one goal on a rocket of a one-timer, assisted on another, and hit the post with another hard shot. With McAvoy on the ice at five-on-five, the Bruins had a rather absurd 31-9 advantage in shot attempts and 18-4 edge in shots on goal. When he was on the ice at the same time as Bergeron, it was 16-1 and 7-0.

Another player who stepped up was Coyle, who has to be a big gun for this team, especially with David Krejci out. When you’re the sixth-highest-paid player on the team at a $5.25 million cap hit, you can’t go eight straight games without a point like Coyle did to start this month. You have to be more like the player who was earning just as much ice time as the Bruins’ top line down the stretch last season.

To Coyle’s credit, he has picked it up recently, with Sunday probably his best game of the season so far. The move he put on K’Andre Miller on the opening goal was a reminder of the pace, power and skill he can play with. He added a late empty-netter for his second goal of the game and now has three goals and an assist over his last four games.

“Listen, Krech is out, so Charlie has an opportunity to sort of drive a little more offense, get some more o-zone draws and opportunities to play in those roles. He took advantage of it,” Cassidy said. “He’s a guy we consider that mid-level leader for our team, so he took it upon himself to do his part and pull his line along. I thought he did a real good job.”

Cassidy called out one group of players by name on Friday, but it was clear that it was really everyone who needed to be better. On Sunday, the Bruins’ best players took it upon themselves to turn things around and set the tone, and that was exactly what Boston needed.

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